Terry Jones trivia: 47 facts about the famous comedian

Terry Jones was a Welsh actor and comedian. He was a part of the comedy team Monty Python.

Let’s find out some trivia and facts about his life and career.

1. His full name is Terence Graham Parry Jones
2. He was born on February 1, 1942
3. He died on January 21, 2020
4. He was a Welsh actor, writer, comedian, screenwriter, film director and historian
5. He was a member of the Monty Python comedy team
6. He graduated from Oxford University with a degree in English
7. Jones and writing partner Michael Palin wrote and performed for several high-profile British comedy programmes
8. They met at Oxford University
9. The comedy programmes they wrote include Do Not Adjust Your Set and The Frost Report
10. Before creating Monty Python’s Flying Circus with Cambridge graduates Eric Idle, John Cleese, and Graham Chapman, and American animator/filmmaker Terry Gilliam
11. Jones was largely responsible for the programme’s innovative, surreal structure
12. In the program sketches flowed from one to the next without the use of punchlines
13. He made his directorial debut with the team’s first film, Monty Python and the Holy Grail
14. The film was co-directed by him and Gilliam
15. He also directed the subsequent Python films, Life of Brian and The Meaning of Life
16. Jones co-created and co-wrote with Palin the anthology series Ripping Yarns
17. He also wrote an early draft of Jim Henson’s 1986 film Labyrinth
18. Though little of his work remained in the final cut
19. Jones was a well-respected medieval historian, having written several books and presented television documentaries about the period, as well as a prolific children’s book author
20. In 2016, Jones received a Lifetime Achievement award at the BAFTA Cymru Awards for his outstanding contribution to television and film
21. After living for several years with a degenerative aphasia, he gradually lost the ability to speak and died on 21 January 2020
22. Jones was born in the seaside town of Colwyn Bay, on the north coast of Wales
23. He was the son of Dilys Louisa (Newnes), a homemaker, and Alick George Parry Jones, a bank clerk
24. The family home was named Bodchwil
25. His father was stationed with the RAF in India
26. When Jones was four-and-a-half, the family moved to Surrey, England
27. Jones attended Esher COE primary school
28. Followed by the Royal Grammar School in Guildford
29. There he was school captain in the 1960-61 academic year
30. He read English at St Edmund Hall, Oxford, but “strayed into history”
31. He became interested in the medieval period through reading Chaucer as part of his English degree
32. He graduated with a 2:1
33. While there, he performed comedy with future Monty Python castmate Michael Palin in the Oxford Revue
34. Jones was a year ahead of Palin at Oxford
35. Jones married Alison Telfer in 1970
36. They had two children together, Sally (born 1974), and Bill (born 1976)
37. They had an open marriage
38. In 2009, Jones left her for Anna Söderström
39. Who was 41 years his junior
40. They had been in a relationship for five years
41. In September 2009, a daughter, Siri, was born to Söderström and Jones
42. In 2015, Jones was diagnosed with primary progressive aphasia
43. It is a form of frontotemporal dementia that impairs the ability to speak and communicate
44. He had first given cause for concern during the Monty Python reunion show Monty Python Live (Mostly) in July 2014 because of difficulties learning his lines
45. By September 2016, he was no longer able to give interviews
46. By April 2017, Jones had lost the ability to say more than a few words of agreement
47. Jones died on 21 January 2020 from complications of dementia at his home in North London